2022 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Laura_Elsewhere

Gem-gem said:

Laura_Elsewhere said:

@PollyWollyDoodle, I don't bother for lots of things, but it would make a lot of sense for a blanket made of squares... especially if the squares are different designs and/or wools, even different colours of one wool can vary enough to make some behave differently... and trying to get a load of not-quite-squares to fit together and be flat and lovely...!

@Gem-gem, I should think all you need to do is wash the squares how you intend to wash the blanket (my washing machine has a very useful 'Rinse' cycle that uses only cold water and has a 1400rpm spin, which I use for all my woollens, really useful - wool never needs detergent), and then spread towels over a spare bit of floor or the spare-room mattress, and just pin the squares out and leave 'em til next day... 
We don't have a spare room and don't have any spare floor so I have to use either the only bit of sitting-room, meaning we can't set foot in the sitting-room all day, or our bed, starting first thing and hoping it will all dry in time for our bedtime! I really only bother with full blocking for lace shawls, tbh... 

Thank you Laura, I have a spare bedroom/bed so am tempted to pin them to the mattress. 

If it's a thicker thing (so retains more moisture) or likely to bleed colour, I'll put towels down on the mattress, but otherwise I literally just use ordinary sewing pins and simply stab it all into the mattress If you're able to leave it a couple of days, that;'s ideal (I sometimes have to lift mine when not yet completely dry because we need to sleep!).

Here's an 'Edlothia' shawl I made a friend, pinned out to torture it to the utmost - you can actually be really quite brutal with crochet and knitting, and a good blocking will hide all kinds of mistakes, phew! 

Gem-gem

Laura_Elsewhere said:

*::waves to everyone::*

We';re both doing ok - Mr E is still positive on Day 12, but still only physically tired and a bit sniffly; I've been negative for 12 days but am finding I need a *lot* more rest than usual...

Still, I got a 1½lbs granary loaf and a ½lb white loaf baked today along with the first jam tarts on months - and some cheese straws to use up the shortcrust pastry - do help yourselves! 

Yum, yum! I hope that there are some left. 

Have been talking to my DB, both he and his girlfriend have Covid at the moment. DB inhalers have been a godsend. He was told that if he got Covid (he is asthmatic) to double his inhaler dose for the duration of the illness. 

Liverpool_Anne

@Laura_Elsewhere, I do love that edlothia shawl. I really must try to do it. Every time I see a photo of it I just WANT one

nannygladys

Laura_Elsewhere - I had the last cheese straw and it was delicious and your shawl ..... all that work and it looks beautiful! I bet your friend loved it.

TwibbleDee

Gem-gem said:

@TwibbleDee, the blanket is beautiful. I have seen a similar style on the internet. I did wonder if that style would be easier to crochet. I now have 36 squares made. 

It was indeed crocheted.  She’s now talking about taking apart some squares that were sewn together in a way she doesn’t like to re-piece and finish off those blankets.  Apparently she’s decided to work her way through her old projects and stash.

PollyWollyDoodle

Well the village hall has been quiet, I think everyone has been busy queuing for rations!  

I have been uncharacteristically profligate after nearly two years of hardly using my clothes rations. Three tankini tops - I’ve got three spa trips this year, making up for things postponed since 2020, and a rare trip abroad where there’ll be a pool. I prefer a swimsuit for actually swimming, but for being on display as it were, a high neck tankini top and my trusty Thunderpants (swimming shorts) are more practical. Can I count them as ‘corsets’ - three coupons each?  

A new pair of black work trousers, that is another 6 coupons, and I need a new pair of shoes so that will be another five 😱 that’s twenty coupons gone.  

‘New’ jeans from Eb*y weren’t a success but yesterday I got a pair of chinos and a denim jacket at charity shops, so coupon free. I’ve been looking for a jacket for ages, but they go really quickly so I was thrilled to find one. 

@Laura_Elsewhere, I have finally made some knickers!  Sadly not for me, but for Miss Rabbit 

PipneyJane

PollyWollyDoodle said:

Well the village hall has been quiet, I think everyone has been busy queuing for rations!  

Sorry, girls, I've been working like a mad person, so haven't had the energy to contribute.  It is becoming distinctly obvious to me that the company which owns my employer eats its young.  (We were sold to them a year ago.)  In April, we were migrated onto their finance system, which looks to me like it was designed by idiots.  Ironically, instead of reducing my workload, it's doubled it.  Ditto for my colleagues and I worry that several are breaking.  We have no map.  No procedures manual to follow.  No copies of service level agreements with which to hold their Shared Service Facility to account, (who are not doing their jobs properly).  Oh, and some of our data is still to be migrated....

(Apologies for the dents in the door of the cupboard under the sink.  That was me kicking out my frustrations.  I will sand it down and repaint it eventually.*)

On a different note, if anyone listens to "radio documentaries" (podcasts), Cast-On's Brenda Dayne recently revisited her segment about 66 coupons, which is what originally inspired my Fashion On The Ration Challenge.  It's towards the end of this episode.  It was originally broadcast in a "make do and mend" series in 2009.  

Oh, and if anyone wants to be truly horrified, following some reporting by the Knitmore Girls, I learned that the average consumer of Fast Fashion buys 68 garments a year!  (Their chat led me to this episode of the Dressed Podcast.  Very interesting.)

- Pip  (Now back to updating my CV and LinkedIn.  Yes.  It's that bad.)






* I used to have a colleague who'd regularly kick the paper-storage-cupboard built into the bottom of the photocopier, since it'd inevitably "go wrong" in the middle of him copying a batch of documents for Companies House.  Now, I understand why.

Broomstick

@PipneyJane, thanks so much for the heads up about the podcast - have just listened to it and really enjoyed it. (The WW2 section starts at about 15.30 and ends at about 30.15.)  I've just bookmarked the rest of the MD&M series  .

TwibbleDee

We’re moving offices before renovation/construction right now.  Thursday is the date we have to be out of an entire wing of the building.  Plus I’ve had to hire and am working on training a new assistant, plus I need to hire a new janitorial person in the next few days.  On top of all my regular stuff.

Laura_Elsewhere

@PollyWollyDoodle, your knickers are adorable!  

@PipneyJane, oh gawd... it sounds like your new employer is what Angela Thirkell called the Ministry of Red Tape and Sealing Wax, specialising in incompetence, idiocy and lack of intelligent forethought to the nth degree...
I believe Mr E's employer was taken over by the Ministry of Red Tape and Sealing Wax last year too, but his job involves systems rapidly becoming legacy systems, and so many staff have left in the past 6-8 months that only a couple of them actually know these systems, so although it's all going pretty disastrously and looking worse, at least he is valued... I think were he younger he would be polishing his CV, mind you. 
Good luck... 

I have finally started sewing again, post-wedding and post-Covid. Yesterday I chalked and cut the big pieces for a 3/4-circle skirt in black linen and was absolutely wiped out by the mental demands. Today I have simply been sewing straight seams, binding raw edges and pressing said seams flat, and it's gone ok but still quite wiped-out. Slowly and steadily.